Supernatural Fresh Meat - By Alice Henderson Page 0,38
for a brand new world? Somewhere it could continue to kill unnoticed?”
Bobby nodded. “So it came to the New World. Only the New World was growing, expanding. It could have started out on the coast, then kept moving inland as more and more settlers took up residence in San Francisco. Maybe it’s been moving east, trying to stay in remote areas. A place gets too populated, it moves on.”
“And now it’s hit upon the wilds of the Sierra Nevadas. That’s good hunting ground there.”
“Skiers, hikers, boaters, gamblers in the casinos. There’s a constant influx of transient people.”
She stopped grinding the salt and met Bobby’s eyes. “This thing’s smart. This is the first time someone’s picked up its trail, and it’s been hunting for a long time.”
Bobby thought of Dean out there with it, armed only with the spice concoction he’d made. “I know. The sooner we get this weapon made, the better I’m going to feel.”
He saw a drawing of the weapon on the next page. A long whip ended in a stingray barb.
“We still don’t know if it’ll work,” she warned him.
He stared again at the insectile eyes, the sharp, cruel features. “It’s got to work. It’s the best shot we have.”
TWENTY-ONE
Dean and Jason found a small clearing in a ring of trees and laid their bags on the ground. Though Dean had a tent, he didn’t relish the thought of sitting in one if the aswang attacked. So they slept out, unrolling their gear on a soft bed of needles.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Dean offered as darkness fell.
Jason slept fitfully while Dean sat against a tree, rifle gripped in one hand and a jar of the concoction Bobby had made in the other. Snow drifted down, dusting the ground and making everything a little brighter. He watched for any trace of activity and strained his ears listening for sounds in the dark.
Everything was so quiet in a snow-covered forest. Dean put his hood up, hearing an almost musical tinkling of snowflakes hitting the material over his head. As he stared out, a chuffing noise snapped his attention behind him. He stood up, tense. Branches snapped and low breathing broke through the silent snowfall. Dean remained quiet, waiting.
The breathing grew louder, and he saw something massive and dark push through the brush and enter their clearing. A head rose from a muscular body and sniffed the air, finding Dean and Jason on the wind. It was a black bear. It stared at Dean, pinpointing him in the dark. Dean stared back.
The bear tossed its head, moved a little closer, then turned away. With a crash of branches, it disappeared into the underbrush.
Dean let out his breath.
He sat down again, training his ears to the quiet. He couldn’t hear anything but the sound of snow on his hood and the rush of his own blood in his ears. The wind had died down. He couldn’t hear traffic or the buzz of electricity or anything out here but the wild. He imagined what this place must have been like for the Donner Party.
He knew that, miles away, Interstate 80 ran right through the Camp of Death where the emigrants had resorted to eating each other. Now people sped by at seventy miles an hour, but it used to be nothing but wilderness stretching from Fort Bridger in Wyoming to Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento. They couldn’t resupply in Reno or Truckee because they didn’t exist yet. But right then, right where he sat, it couldn’t have been very different than it must have been for them. He could yell and cry out and no one would hear him. Without his car, it would take days to hike out to civilization.
He heard Jason stir and looked over at the sleeping hunter. His brow was creased with a nightmare, and his eyes moved rapidly beneath the lids. Dean would never admit it, but he felt pretty good keeping watch, looking out for someone. His whole life felt like he’d been looking out for people. Sammy when he was little, strangers who’d been attacked by monsters. This was the first time in his life he felt obsolete. Sam didn’t seem to need him anymore. He barely talked to Dean about things that mattered, and Dean knew he was suffering with images of Hell. Dean felt a punch in his gut and tried to push away the thoughts that caused it, but he couldn’t. Dean felt guilty. Maybe he didn’t deserve Sam’s regard.